[Consumers] are usually completely unaware that our purchases of cell phones, computers, jewelry, video games, cameras, cars, and so many other products are helping fuel violence halfway around the world …

Congo Stories by John Prendergast and Fidel Bafilemba relates the West’s dependence on conflict materials from the DRC...Read More

Unlike China, the West lacks a rare minerals strategy, warns David S. Abraham

by Greg Klein

Something of an epiphany came to him in 2010 as he watched the aftermath of a minor incident in internationally disputed waters. China’s shock-and-awe response turned its near-monopoly on rare earths into a mighty geopolitical weapon, exposing the perilous nature of our dependence on seemingly obscure commodities. That inspired David S. Abraham’s 2015 book The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age. Now, as a similar confrontation threatens to flare up again, he sees the West still unprepared for further attacks on vital supply lines.

Asked whether people in power have at least gained greater awareness, his response is a firm No.

Speaking on the phone from Indonesia, Abraham took time to discuss the issue with ResourceClips.com. The 2010 event, of course, began with the China-Japan territorial dispute in the East China Sea. Late last year American warships entered the South China Sea, in another challenge to China’s claim to sovereignty. Yet compared with previous years, “I think we’re even more vulnerable to shock in our supply lines,” he says.

“If you look at rare earths, in 2010 there were opportunities for new supplies to come onstream quite quickly, and they’ve since failed. People look at that failure and say these places couldn’t compete, they couldn’t produce economically, so they failed.”

China, having pushed up prices exponentially by withholding rare earths, swung to the other extreme and flooded the market. That dashed the hopes of many potential non-Chinese producers yet encouraged complacency among end-users. “But the supply lines themselves really look no different than they did back then,” Abraham cautions.

Of course the problem’s hardly limited to rare earths. Just one example Abraham points to is cobalt and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Estimates of DRC supply range from 51% of the world total (2015 figures from the U.S. Geological Survey), to nearly 60% (Benchmark Mineral Intelligence), to 65% (Disruptive Discoveries Journal). That gives a disproportionate amount of supply not only to a single country, but one plagued with political instability and conflict mining.

Troubling too is the ownership.

Already a major player in the country, China stands to increase its DRC position should China Molybdenum and a Chinese private equity firm succeed in their $3.8-billion purchase of a majority interest in Tenke Fungurume, one of the world’s biggest copper-cobalt mines. With a 20% stake, the DRC state-owned company Gécamines has tried to block the sale but reportedly accepted a $100-million settlement.

What you see China doing is really consolidating up the supply line…. What they’re trying to do is build up their material capacity so other people producing batteries have to use material coming through China.—David S. Abraham

“What you see China doing is really consolidating up the supply line…. What they’re trying to do is build up their material capacity so other people producing batteries have to use material coming through China.”

The country fosters economic growth by “adding to the value chain that they can produce in their own country. It’s a strong economic argument. It’s not dissimilar to what Trump says, but he hasn’t really gone into the deep thinking that’s happening in China.”

Certainly, China’s strategic approach contrasts with the West. That’s suggested by the example of Tenke Fungurume’s would-be vendors, the American/Canadian team of Freeport-McMoRan NYSE:FCX and Lundin Mining TSX:LUN.

“For those companies, it’s about profits,” Abraham acknowledges. “The question is, what are the technology companies thinking about? Companies like Apple are trying to do a better job of understanding where their materials come from, but some of the others are less concerned.”

With the U.S. military in mind, Rep. Duncan Hunter is anticipated to propose a congressional bill that would help develop domestic supplies of rare minerals.

Abraham’s skeptical. “Most bills on critical materials have not passed and his bills usually have the least chance of passing…. That’s not to say the U.S. hasn’t given money to metallurgy and mining before, but with the exception of some dabbling in beryllium in the ’90s, I can’t recall a time where the U.S. was really investing in mines from a defence perspective.”

If decision-makers lack awareness, they’re not alone, he believes. Abraham sees little evidence that consumers understand the issues. “People talk about being concerned about where these materials come from but they really have to understand the challenging supply lines, and that’s what the book was trying to introduce people to,” he says. “It’s still a little too complex to fathom and I don’t think people think beyond ‘my phone causes conflict in Congo’ and get to the point that ‘my phone leads to geopolitical war.’”

If so, that makes The Elements of Power as timely now as it was in 2015. A paperback edition comes out in April.

In concluding the phone call, Abraham offers a maxim: “Nothing changes very fast. Then everything changes all of a sudden.”